As Congress opens hearings this week on the sharp uptick in unaccompanied children traveling to the United States, the Obama administration is focused on the humanitarian aspects of this crisis. If efforts to reduce a flow that has spiked 90 percent since last year are to succeed, however, the administration will need to look beyond immediate care needs and public information campaigns that attempt to deter children from setting off on these dangerous journeys.

Young immigrants and their families already know the risks. They are taking them because of desperate conditions in their home countries and because thousands before them have entered the U.S. and reunited with family members here.

Very high numbers — 85 percent or more — of these migrant children are placed with a parent or close relative. Although they all face immigration hearings and available data suggests that the majority are likely to be found deportable, there are long delays before return would take place. Those delays are only growing as the entire system is taxed by the sharp increases in arrivals.

While critical information to guide policymaking is incomplete, we know enough about this flow and from experience with prior emergencies, for example Haitian and Cuban flows in the 1990s, to recognize that such circumstances serve as incentives for more such migration. Thus, the incentives must be reversed if the U.S. is to move from crisis response to longer-term solutions.

Unaccompanied children at the border are released to family members to await immigration hearings that are required by U.S. law. The hearing requirement serves laudable policy reasons that must continue to be observed. Indeed, some share of the Central American flow does get political asylum or other forms of relief. But a large share is subject to repatriation. Ruling on unaccompanied-minor cases early in the process to eliminate the growing delay in protection and repatriation decisions is a key next step.

Upfront hearings would mean that unaccompanied children would no longer be released to family members pending a decision on their eligibility to remain here. Those whose claims for relief from return are denied would be repatriated expeditiously; those with successful claims would be released to relatives or other sponsors. Only by changing the experience of release to family members in the U.S. and long-delayed hearings will human smugglers and those seeking family reunification — however sympathetic their circumstances — reassess the risks and rewards of life-threatening journeys.

It is essential that upfront hearings fully address legitimate humanitarian concerns and remain in compliance with current law. This would require a major mobilization effort. Congress is already poised to appropriate $2 billion for handling the crisis. It could earmark some share of that to pay for an up-front hearing system.

The mobilization should focus on assigning adequate numbers of immigration judges to conduct hearings during the average four- to eight-week period that child migrants now spend in U.S. care. There should be pro bono legal representation for children in hearings — something that most currently lack — and a cadre of asylum officers to assess asylum claims.

A critical element must be a meaningful consular presence so that sending countries can assist these children and act as liaisons for safe reception and access to available services that support reintegration upon return.

The causes for this migration are many, and the crime, violence and endemic poverty propelling the exodus of these children don’t lend themselves to immediate solutions. Thus, the policy responses must be both immediate and longer term, involving not only the United States but also Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

However, the first meaningful step rests with the United States to reverse the incentives that are enticing more to take perilous journeys. Admission into the U.S. pending far-off immigration court hearings has become perverse, if unintended, pull factors for these most vulnerable of migrants.

Doris Meissner, who directs the U.S. immigration policy program at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, served as commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1993 to 2000.

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